A user desiring to retrieve any multimedia document (such as image, sound, audio, video, text) is provided the ability to select the size of the document desired. The HTTP protocol HEAD method is used for extracting content length and content type from the server. Whether the client browser requests the document or not is based on the content length and content type sent in the header served to the browser by the server and the minimum or maximum size selected by the user for the relevant type. If the content size is not within the parameters defined by the user, the document will not be requested or served on the network.